"Waxen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of them went to the said place. . . . And on the day of the Fete-Dieu, which was the 11th day of the said month of June, the king went in procession, most devoutly, with the parish of St. Paul and all the clergy, to the spot where was the said image. He himself carried a lighted waxen taper, bareheaded, with very great reverence, having with him the band and hautbois with several clarions and trumpets, which made a glorious show, so melodiously did they play. And with him were the Cardinal of Lorraine, and several prelates and great lords, and all ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the familiar entrance, and then, after the ill-assorted trio had gone up the great staircase and into the first gallery, Mr. Sleuth suddenly stopped short. The presence of those curious, still, waxen figures which suggest so strangely death in life, seemed to ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... from considering them barbarous, that I believe of all works of religious art whatsoever, these, and such as these, have been the most effective. They stand exactly midway between the debased manufacture of wooden and waxen images which is the support of Romanist idolatry all over the world, and the great art which leads the mind away from the religious subject to the art itself. Respecting neither of these branches of human skill is there, nor can there be, any question. The manufacture of puppets, however influential ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... his place would be vacant; we should see him no more. To-morrow he would not suspect, but would be as he had always been, and it would shock me to hear him laugh, and see him do lightsome and frivolous things, for to me he would be a corpse, with waxen hands and dull eyes, and I should see the shroud around his face; and next day he would not suspect, nor the next, and all the time his handful of days would be wasting swiftly away and that awful thing coming ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... swing open door, and shade Take me; I am not afraid, For the time will not be long; Soon I shall have waxen strong— Strong enough my own to win From the grave it lies within." And I entered. On her bier Quiet lay the buried year; I sat down where I could see Life without and sunshine free, Death within. And I between, Waited my own heart to wean From the shroud that shaded her ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... following lines from a French metrical romance, written about that time, to show that waxen tablets continued to be occasionally used ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... now found myself in a lofty and spacious saloon. From the ceiling, which was of azure sprinkled with golden stars, were suspended the most magnificent chandeliers, brilliant with a thousand waxen tapers. Gorgeous and life-like tapestry adorned the walls—massive mirrors reflected on every side the blaze of elegance, while the furniture, patterning the fashions of the different ages from the times ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... this girl, whose covetous gaze wandered from a gorgeous scarlet and gold orchid nodding in dreams of its habitat, in some vanilla scented Brazilian jungle, to a bed of vivid green moss, where skilful hands had grouped great drooping sprays of waxen begonias, coral, faint pink, and ivory, all powdered with gold dust like that which gilds ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Frowning she spoke, in plucking from her thigh The fragrant flowers that clasped it lovingly. "In such a town, O son, a maid there is Whom any amorous man this day would kiss As gladly as a goddess like to me, And though I know an end to this must be, When white and red and gold are waxen grey Down on the earth, while unto me one day Is as another; yet behold, my son, And go through all my temples one by one And look what incense rises unto me; Hearken the talk of sailors from the sea Just landed, ever will it be the same, 'Hast ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... the World, passing away: Chances, beauty and youth sapped day by day: Thy life never continueth in one stay. Is the eye waxen dim, is the dark hair changing to grey That hath won neither laurel nor bay? I shall clothe myself in Spring and bud in May: Thou, root-stricken, shalt not rebuild thy decay On my bosom for aye. Then ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... circular central pool, wherein fat gold-fish went idly to and fro, nuzzling floating specks upon the surface. Through the polished green of the surrounding palms and rubber-plants stared gardenias and camelias; below, between maidenhair and sword-ferns, winked the little waxen blossoms of fuchsias and begonias: at intervals poinsettia flared audaciously among its more quietly dressed neighbors; and, in the far corners the golden spheres were swelling to fairly respectable proportions on ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... lent us, for none have saved our glory from the grave. But I, by my arts and by the arts of those dead men of Kor which I have learned, have held thee back, oh Kallikrates, from the dust, that the waxen stamp of beauty on thy face should ever rest before mine eye. 'Twas a mask that memory might fill, serving to fashion out thy presence from the past, and give it strength to wander in the habitations of my thought, clad in ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... things which they have so loved are kept carefully for them; but they will only tell them of what they have done for themselves." So she opened the door, and Ruth looked in. There was such a medley of things! Candies of gay colors, nice waxen dolls, a great many broken toys, nice fruit, and, indeed, I could not begin to tell you of all Ruth saw there. There had come, too, a mould upon many of the things, so many of them had grown tarnished; ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins
... balustrade, Boileau with a pitchfork was preventing seven or eight bad poets from entering, to the amusement and approval of Racine, who was already inside, and of La Fontaine, who was invited to come forward. The likeness of these little waxen images is said to have been perfect, and there can hardly be fancied a relic of that fine society which would be more valuable to us in re-establishing its social character. We know not what became of ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... alms at this chapel than at any other. In fact they both seem to consider that this chapel did very well. "Qui," says Torrotti, "si colgano elemosine assai," and, as I have said already, it is here that a few autumn leaves of waxen images still linger. ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... about in every different direction; even those returning from the fields, before the agitation came to its height, no sooner entered the hive than they participated in these tumultuous motions. They neglected to free themselves of the waxen pellets on their limbs, and ran blindly about. At last the whole rushed precipitately towards the outlets of the hive, and the queen ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber
... Bishops were acquitted, and on which the invitation was despatched to the Hague, James returned from Hounslow to Westminster in a gloomy and agitated mood. He made an effort that afternoon to appear cheerful: [428] but the bonfires, the rockets, and above all the waxen Popes who were blazing in every quarter of London, were not likely to soothe him. Those who saw him on the morrow could easily read in his face and demeanour the violent emotions which agitated his ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... vile and of no value, and had every trifle and toy in admiration that is brought hither from far countries, ascribing I wot not what great forces and solemn estimation unto them, until they also have waxen old, after which they have been so little regarded, if not more despised, amongst us than our own. Examples hereof I could set down many and in many things; but, sith my purpose is to deal at this time with gardens and orchards, it shall suffice ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... read the old nun, "is the highest prayer, and it cometh down to the lowest part of our need. It quickeneth our soul and bringeth it on life, and maketh it for to waxen in grace and virtue. It is nearest in nature; and readiest in grace: for it is the same grace that the soul seeketh, and ever shall seek till we know verily that He hath us all in Himself enclosed. For he hath no ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... moonlight. A hat that WAS a hat, as I have previously remarked, and Indiman and I gazed upon it with undisguised interest. It is hardly necessary to add that this particular hat had the place of honor in the shop-window, it being mounted upon the waxen model of a simpering lady with flaxen curls and a complexion incomparable. Assuredly, then, ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... It was dressed in a scarlet robe, embroidered like the throne; its feet in gold embroidered slippers were thrust forward on a cushion; its hands in rich gloves were clasped to the arms of the chair; and its grinning waxen face, very pale, was surmounted by a vast tiara on which were three crowns, one above the other. Round the neck hung a gold cross and chain; and a pair of great keys hung down on one side. A devil in tight fitting black, with a masked face, and long sprouting nails, with a tail ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... which to shoot. Here and there he saw dim, white streaks, and at these he fired as fast as he could throw cartridges into the chamber and pull the trigger. Then he crouched down with the empty gun. It was Mary Standish who held out a freshly loaded weapon to him. Her face was waxen in its deathly pallor. Her eyes, staring at him so strangely, never for an instant leaving his face, were lustrous with the agony of fear that flamed in their depths. She was not afraid for herself. It was for him. His name was on her lips, a whisper unspoken, a breathless prayer, and in ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... was nonsensically accused of practising witchcraft to cause the King's death and lead to her husband's coming to the throne, he being the next heir. She was charged with having, by the help of a ridiculous old woman named Margery (who was called a witch), made a little waxen doll in the King's likeness, and put it before a slow fire that it might gradually melt away. It was supposed, in such cases, that the death of the person whom the doll was made to represent, was sure to happen. Whether the duchess was as ignorant as the rest of ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... such testimony, Brother Gordon proceeded with the service feeling as if there was little more he could say of one whose deeds thus spoke for her. Loving hands had laid flowers all around the child who had led them. One tiny lassie placed a dandelion in the small waxen fingers and now stood, abandoned to grief beside the still form that bore the impress of absolute purity. The service over, again and again was the coffin lid waved back by some one longing for another look, and they seemed as if they ...
— Children's Edition of Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer • S. B. Shaw
... over her beautiful waxen features, as Mrs. Fowler and little Mag assisted her to her feet. No penitent at a Methodist revival-service ever looked more serious than did Jim Newall, as ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... work, work," he muttered,— "And for rest a snuffle of psalms!" He smote on his leathern apron With his brown and waxen palms. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... cried the enraged governor, drawing his sword; "I am no waxen-hearted Hambledon, to be cajoled by your beauty. Declare where Wallace is concealed, or ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... downstairs in the dark shop the dealer with the waxen face detained her to show some old silver and jewelry and such like. But she did not come to herself, she had no precise recollection of anything, till she found herself entering a church near Portland ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... Mistress Maud Lindesay, "that, since lamps are dangerous things in maidens' chambers, he desires you to assist in the trimming of the waxen tapers to-night—that is, if so menial a service shame ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... storm music into plaintive echoes of a lullaby. As it grew light a world of magic beauty greeted my eyes. Winter was King, but withal a tender monarch wooing as his handmaidens the beauties of early spring. The great Camellia trees gave lavishly of their waxen flowers, brocading the snow in crimson. Young bamboo swinging low under the burden, edged its covering of white down with a lacy fringe of delicate green. The scene should have called forth a hymn ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... something might happen to their old Queen Mother, so, after she has gone away, they sometimes go into a cell where she has laid a Worker egg, and take down the waxen walls between it and the ones on either side to make a very large royal cell. They bite away the wax with their strong jaws and press the rough edges into shape with their feet. When this egg hatches, they do not feed the baby, or Larva, with tasteless bread ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... waiting upon him, and Mad Noll, the jester, stood at the head of the bed, now and then jingling his bawble and passing some quaint jest upon the chance of making his master smile. Upon a table near by were some dozen or so waxen tapers struck upon as many spiked candlesticks of silver-gilt, and illuminating that end of the room with their bright twinkling flames. One of the gentlemen was in the act of serving the Earl with a goblet of wine, poured from a silver ewer by one of the squires, ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... narrow arched window of the room where Alwyn lay, still wrapped in that profound repose, so like the last long sleep from which some of our modern scientists tell us there can be no awakening. His condition was unchanged,—the wan beams of the early clay falling cross his features intensified their waxen stillness and pallor,—the awful majesty of death was on him,—the pathetic helplessness and perishableness of Body without Spirit. Presently the monastery bell began to ring for matins, and as its clear chime struck through ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... sitting in the same chair beside the cradle in which she had sat in the morning, for she had called Nanna to move the box at a time when the child had been taken out for its second airing. She leaned back, resting her auburn hair against the bare wall, the waxen whiteness of her face contrasting with the ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... cinder flew out and looked aghast at Eliza, her ruddy face growing mottled, while the housemaid's cheeks were waxen as the maids gave themselves up to the silly superstition that, like many more, does not die hard but absolutely ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... follows:—To each of us individually our moral ideas come first of all in childhood through the medium of education, from parents and teachers, assisted by the unconscious influence of language; they are impressed upon a mind which at first is like a waxen tablet, adapted to receive them; but they soon become fixed or set, and in after life are strengthened, or perhaps weakened by the force of public opinion. They may be corrected and enlarged by experience, they may ...
— Philebus • Plato
... the ties of fidelity; and the intentional guilt of magic was aggravated by the actual crimes of treason and sacrilege. [49] Such vain terrors disturbed the peace of society, and the happiness of individuals; and the harmless flame which insensibly melted a waxen image, might derive a powerful and pernicious energy from the affrighted fancy of the person whom it was maliciously designed to represent. [50] From the infusion of those herbs, which were supposed to possess a supernatural influence, it was an easy step to the use of more substantial poison; ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... the mould by immersing it in a tank of melted wax. The cold metal chills the wax that touches it, so that the mould soon has a thick waxen lining. The mould and copy are removed from the tank and mounted on a lathe, which shapes and smooths the inside of the record. The record is loosened from the mould by cooling. After inspection for flaws, it is, if found satisfactory, packed in cotton-wool and ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... themselves, they lamed cattle, and made the corn not grow; and how they made images of wax to stand for people that had done them any injury, or they thought had done them injury; and how they burnt the images before a slow fire, and stuck pins in them; and the persons which these waxen images represented, however far distant, felt all the pains and torments in good earnest, which were inflicted in show upon these images: and such a horror I had of these wicked witches, that though I am now better instructed, and look upon all these stories as mere idle tales, and invented to ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... and walked straight across King's Road. A light gray overcoat, thrown wide on his shoulders, gave a lavish display of frilled shirt, and a gray Homburg hat was set rakishly on one side of his head. In the half light Medenham at once discerned the regular, waxen-skinned features of Count Marigny, and during the next few seconds it really seemed as if the Frenchman were making directly for him. But another man, short, rotund, very erect of figure, and strutting in gait, came from the interior of a "shelter" that stood ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... their houses of cylindrical form, rising several feet from the surface. Others, again, prefer nesting in the trees, where they construct large cellular masses of many shapes, suspending them from the highest branches; while many species make their waxen dwellings in hollow trunks, or beneath the surface of the earth. There is not a species, however, whose habits, fully observed and described, would not strike you with astonishment. Indeed, it is difficult to believe ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... powers to which she lays claim. What! I, she exclaims, who can waste life as the waxen image of my victim melts before my magic fire [Footnote: Thus Hecate in Middleton's "Witch" assures to the Duchess of Glo'ster "a sudden and subtle death" to her victim:—]—I, who can bring down the moon from her sphere, evoke ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... listlessly. "I don't know which ith the prettier, the little white waxen berries ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... said Norman, who thought her more inanimate and like a pretty little waxen toy, than when he had last seen her. ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... had been with snow, it had seemed to have quite a pyramidal base, but the solid ice of its lower parts had in the course of time been eaten away till it was as fragile as the waxen comb it in some places resembled, and had crumbled down as soon as it ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... and her long hair in stooping Concealed her features better than a veil; And one hand o'er the ottoman lay drooping, White, waxen, and as alabaster pale: Would that I were a painter! to be grouping All that a poet drags into detail! Oh that my words were colours! but their tints May serve perhaps ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... Rossetti and of his ballad of "Sister Helen," he confessed to being strangely attracted to this poem because he could remember seeing his mother, "who was as good a woman as ever lived," and his aunt performing the same strange act of melting a waxen figure of a clergyman of ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... Master, watching Western Christendom today, with all our hatred, bitterness, war, would have to say, If this is Christianity, then I am not a Christian. The Master, wandering through our cathedrals with their masses, waxen images and votive gifts, or through our Protestant churches with their fine-spun speculations insisted on as necessary to belief if one is to be a child of grace, would have to say, If this is Christianity, then I am not a Christian. Indeed, just ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... a composite picture, vivid in its detail, engraved itself deeply, with exceeding swiftness, line by line, upon the waxen tablets of his mind. In this picture the thrush that had flown out of the ivy, the Empty House itself, and its horrible, pursuing Inmate were all somehow curiously mingled together with the black wings of the bull, and with his own sensation of rushing—flying ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... much the words as the tone that brought comfort to Eve. She was leaning over her brother's bed watching the beautiful face, so waxen now, and listening to his heavy breathing, which was steadily moderating to a normal ease. The boy was sleeping the result of a dose administered to him by Doc Crombie who had been urgently summoned immediately after winning his race with Nature in another part of the village. Elia had been ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... it is sealed over with a convex waxen lid. It is now hidden from our sight for about twelve days, when it bites off the cover, and comes forth a perfect bee. The period from the egg to the perfect bee varies from twenty to twenty-four days; average about twenty-two for workers, twenty-four ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... double reason for wishing to see Kalora married. While she remained at home he knew that he would be second in authority. There is an occidental misapprehension to the effect that every woman beyond the borders of the Levant is a languorous and waxen lily, floating in a milk-warm pool of idleness. It is true that the women of a household live in certain apartments set aside as a "harem." But "harem" literally means "forbidden"—that is, forbidden to the public, nothing more. Every villa at ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... with her aunt, Eustacie for a moment looked towards the chapel, then, clasping her hands, murmured to herself, 'No! no! speed is my best hope;' and at once mounted the stairs, and entered a room, where the large stone crucifix, a waxen Madonna, and the holy water font gave a cell-like aspect to the room; and a straw pallet covered with sackcloth was on the floor, a richly curtained couch driven into the rear, ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had closed another soul had winged its flight to Heaven, and the tiny waxen form of Lianor's baby-girl left in its last ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... on the floor of the great stone room,—for there was no furniture,—playing contentedly with their poor dolls, and smiling and nodding at "the little Americana," who gravely regarded this sad spectacle, wondering how they could get on without china and waxen babies, tea-sets, and pretty chairs and tables ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... careful in your association with common persons; if you are not, every day like wax in the sun there will be melted away whatever you inscribe on your minds in the school. Withdraw then yourselves far from the sun so long as you have these waxen sentiments. For this reason also philosophers advise men to leave their native country, because ancient habits distract them and do not allow a beginning to be made of a different habit; nor can we tolerate those who meet us and say: ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... merely learned is like an artificial limb, a false tooth, a waxen nose; at best, like a nose made out of another's flesh; it adheres to us only because it is put on. But truth acquired by thinking of our own is like a natural limb; it alone really belongs to us. This is the fundamental difference between the ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... lady said well and that they would do this to the best of their power; wherefore, calling the boy into the warehouse, one of them began very lovingly to bespeak him thus, 'My son, thou art now somewhat waxen in years and it were well that thou shouldst begin to look for thyself to thine affairs; wherefore it would much content us that thou shouldst go sojourn awhile at Paris, where thou wilt see how great part of thy wealth is employed, more by ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... girl said, and entered forthwith into a grave discussion with him as to the colour he thought more suitable for that waxen lady's winter cloak. ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... the moon," said I—not thus to be outdone— "What of the moon? Over the dusty plane-trees Which crouch in the dusk above their feeble lanterns, Each coldly lighted by his tiny faith; The moon, the waxen moon, now almost full, Creeps whitely up.... Westward the waves of cloud, Vermilion, crimson, violet, stream on the air, Shatter to golden flakes in the icy green Translucency of twilight.... And the moon Drinks up their light, ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... required to emerge from the natal darkness, to unwrap the swaddling-bands, to break the subterranean shells, to demolish the waxen bulkheads, to perforate the soil or to escape from ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... tiny shoot appeared; a waxen point Close shawled in many folds of wax as white, It might have been a vine to humbly creep— A lily soon to sunward flare its stars— A shrub to briefly coquette with the winds. ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... in the silent and deserted wing was full of fantastic shadows. He threw himself on a chair beside a window without lighting his lamp. The rose garden outside was steeped in moonlight; the magnolia bells gleamed waxen-white against their glossy green leaves; the vines on the tall trellises threw a soft network of dancing shadows on the white-shelled walks below; the night air stealing about was loaded with the perfume of ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... of a water whistle. If you closed your eyes, you could at least imagine you were hearing a song sung by some one in the distance. But if you looked at the thing closely with its lifeless, mask-like kindly, waxen face, and heard the shrill, muffled sounds, without either articulation or rhythm, coming from within, it took on a ghostly aspect. Herr Carovius in fact felt a cold chill creep down ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... much less blue; and the whiteness of his cheeks was no longer a dead waxen color. He opened his eyes ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... Jews, waxen-faced, their thin bodies bent with fatigue. Some had taken their shoes off, and limped along barefooted over the cobble-stones. Others would have fallen if their comrades had not held them up. Once or twice a man lurched out of the procession ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... 1778, a similar experiment, to rid herself of an old husband. As the dose was rather strong, death was followed by the rapid and violent separation of the members. They employed all possible means to retain the body in a human form until the funeral was over. The face was covered with a waxen mask, and by this means was the condition of the corpse concealed. This separation of the members seems to be the usual effect of this poison, and is said to occur as soon as the ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... forward to meet her stepdaughter kindly—not warmly, not tumultuously—with her quiet, easy, waxen grace that never saw when things were wrong, and that always assumed the halcyon seas even in the teeth of a gale. For her greeting she bent forward to kiss the girl's face, saying, "My dear child, I am glad to see you," but ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... laugh me down: my latest rival brings thee rest. Baby fingers, waxen touches, press ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... belongings and memorials of that gifted, eccentric race are gathered and historically disposed. The princes of the mighty line who stand out from the rest are Frederick the Great and his infuriate. father; and in the waxen likeness of the son, a small thin figure, terribly spry, and a face pitilessly alert, appears something of the madness which showed in the life ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... for there were whips and jew's-harps for the boys, and nice check aprons for the girls. (The taste for "playing mother" was as much an instinct, with the female children of that day, as it is in times more modern; but life was yet too earnest to display it in the dressing and nursing of waxen babies.) To suit the people from whom the peddler's income was derived, he must consult at least the appearance of utility, in every article he offered; for, though no man could do more, to coax the money out of one's ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... there be to remember Of us in the days to be? Whose faith was a trodden ember And even our doubt not free; Parliaments built of paper, And the soft swords of gold That twist like a waxen taper In the weak aggressor's hold; A hush around Hunger, slaying A city of serfs unfed; What shall we leave for a saying To praise us when we are dead? But men shall remember the Mountain That broke its forest chains, And men shall remember the Mountain When ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... in search of aid, he could not immediately see the king, but was obliged to send in a message written on a waxen tablet. This passed from hand to hand, and finally reached Darius, who, recognizing the name at the bottom of the request, graciously said that he would receive the ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... croon, Sibby's regular lullaby, always served for her, and the 'Hardy Norseman' for Felix, who had sometimes whistled it to him. Wilmet spent every available moment in awaking the smile on the little waxen face that had never responded before; it seemed to be just the cheering hope she needed to revive her spirits, only she was almost ready to renounce her journey with Alda for the sake of cultivating the ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... said she, "if it were approved, I could mould a little waxen image of our Lord for the altar, and wreathe ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... the eye, at least, there is no reminder of the scene of the Nativity in this close and stifling chapel, hung with costly silks and embroideries, glittering with rich lamps, filled with the smoke of incense and waxen tapers. And to the heart there is little suggestion of the lonely night when Joseph found a humble refuge here for his young bride to wait in darkness, pain and hope for ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... strange prayer said, Like some o'er-weary child, her head She pillowed on her arm, and wept Low, shuddering sobs, until she slept And dreamed; and in that dream she thought She sat within a vine-wreathed cot; An infant slumbered on her breast, She crooned a lullaby, and pressed Its waxen hand against her cheek, While one, too proud and fond to speak, The happy father of the child, Stood near, and gazing on ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... her husband would be next in order of succession to the throne, was anxious to hasten that event. It was a superstitious age, and the Duchess consulted an astrologer as to the time of the king's death, and employed a reputed witch to make a waxen image of the king under the belief that as the wax melted before the fire the king's life would waste away. In 1441 these proceedings were detected. The astrologer was hanged, the witch was burnt, whilst the Duchess escaped with doing public penance and with imprisonment for life. Gloucester ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... youth, This sanctity of Nature given to man, 295 A shadow, a delusion? ye who pore On the dead letter, miss the spirit of things; Whose truth is not a motion or a shape Instinct with vital functions, but a block Or waxen image which yourselves have made, 300 And ye adore! But blessed be the God Of Nature and of Man that this was so; That men before my inexperienced eyes Did first present themselves thus purified, Removed, and to ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... wardrobe; my finest muslin dresses I converted into frocks and robes, with my lace I fondly trimmed them. It was a sweetly pleasing task, and I often smiled when I reflected that only three years before this period I had dressed a waxen doll nearly as ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... Saturnian lead. And now those eyes shone less and less frequently upon the pages over which I pored. Ligeia grew ill. The wild eyes blazed with a too—too glorious effulgence; the pale fingers became of the transparent waxen hue of the grave; and the blue veins upon the lofty forehead swelled and sank impetuously with the tides of the most gentle emotion. I saw that she must die—and I struggled desperately in spirit with ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... others, as diminutive, one above and below, were tucked onto these. And this, with the big room, was the Hermitage. A very unpretentious cabin was the first Hermitage; the humble and honored roof of Rachel and Andrew Jackson, the couple standing under the waxen candles in the big room waiting to receive their guests. The master was resplendent, if uncomfortable, in his silken stockings, buckles, and powder, and rich velvet. For, whatever his faults, he was no coxcomb, and the knee breeches and finery had only been assumed for that one occasion, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... been those who could see in this dead Christ,—lying rigid in a green sarcophagus that throws over the waxen flesh the ghastly threat of that decay which would follow if no miracle intervened,—there have been those, I say, who could see in it only superb technique. And others see only the negation of all idealism, ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... to love all mankind—not harbouring an angry thought or an ill feeling! He looked into the kind eyes beside him and felt that he should like to be a saint or a minister—not a lawyer, which might be wicked after all. Then he remembered the waxen-faced, choleric clergyman of the church his stepmother attended, but he put the memory away. No, he would not be like that; he would not preach fire and brimstone from a white-pine pulpit. He would be large and just and merciful like God; and Juliet Burwell ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... smile lighted his fair waxen features, as waning, sickly sunshine in an autumn evening flickers over sculptured marble ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... hateful to all the people? Dost thou not owe thy life to the gods? And did they not present thee to the king in answer to his prayer, thus redeeming him from the bondage of childlessness?" While this Theudas, waxen old in wickedness, was putting forth these many vain arguments and useless propositions, and weaving words about the preaching of the Gospel, desiring to turn it into mockery, and magnify idolatry, Ioasaph, the son of the heavenly king, and citizen of that city which the Lord hath builded ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... day was reflected from the red streets, white houses, and waxen leaves of the tropical foliage with enervating force. An occasional ex-convict sullenly lounged by, touching his cap as he was required by law; a native here and there leaned idly against a house-wall or a magnolia tree; ill-looking men and women loitered ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Every step and shelf of the rocks was cushioned with tricolored violets, white anemones, and a succulent, moss-like plant with a golden flower. Higher up there were sheets of fire-red pinks, and on the summit an unbroken carpet of the dwarf whortleberry, with its waxen bells. Light exhalations seemed to rise from the damp hollows, and drift towards us; but they resolved themselves into swarms of mosquitoes, and would have made the hill-top untenable, had they not been dispersed by a sudden breeze. We sat down upon a rock and contemplated ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... had been carefully cultivated and had already secured her the first position in the woman's chorus at the festival of the great goddesses of the city. Every one was full of her praises, and after she had sung the Yalemos in the palace over the waxen image of the favourite of the gods, slain by the boar, her name was eagerly applauded. To have heard her was esteemed a privilege, for she sang only in her own house or at religious ceremonials "for the honour ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... grandchildren? It is to Miss Bronte's abiding lack of humor that we owe such stately caricatures as Blanche Ingram and all the high-born, ill-bred company who gather in Thornfield Hall, like a group fresh from Madame Tussaud's ingenious workshop, and against whose waxen unreality Jane Eyre and Rochester, alive to their very finger-tips, contrast like twin sparks of fire. It was her lack of humor, too, which beguiled her into asserting that the forty "wicked, sophistical and immoral French novels" which found ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... blood rise to her cheeks with the longing to hear once more some word of tender love, such as he had been used to speak to her. But though he often looked at her and greeted her ever kindly, his quiet, luminous eyes changed not when they gazed on her, nor was there any warmer touch of colour in the waxen whiteness of his face. His youth was utterly gone, as the golden light had faded from his hair. He was not like an old man—he was hardly like a man at all; but rather like some beautiful, strange angel from another ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... shone. Men talked in the chamber, and she listened to their talk. They spoke much and laughed gleefully. Then she entered the doorway and looked upon them. They were six in number, evil-eyed men of Ethiopia, and seated in a circle. In the centre of the circle lay the waxen image of a man, and they were cutting it with knives and searing it with needles of iron and pincers made red-hot, and many instruments strange and dreadful to look upon. For these were the tormentors, ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... kissed the sweet, tremulous lips, his features working with emotion, "My wife, my dear love, what—what is this? what ails our little one?" he asked in anguished accents, turning his eyes upon the waxen baby face; and, bending still lower, he softly touched his lips ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... knife and fork. But, in justice to them, that was the first instantaneous effect. No one could learn like that, all of a sudden, that they were about to die in an indiscriminate slaughter without the heart being stopped for a little. Ermolai's words had turned these amiable loafers into waxen statues, but, little by little, their hearts commenced to beat again and each suggested some way of preventing the disaster—all of them sufficiently incoherent—while Matrena Petrovna invoked the Virgin and at the same time helped Feodor ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... and blue waxen flowers struggled up amid the rubble of what were once defiant bastions. I lay down in the luxuriant grass, closed my eyes, and longed for a vision of heroic days. I thought of the Prince who had been ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... their significations, appear to be radically very different words; and yet they are something more akin than even cousins-german. 'Style' is known to be from the [Greek: stylos], or stylus, which the Greeks and Romans employed in writing on their waxen tablets; and, as they were both sharp and strong, they became in the hands of scholars quite formidable instruments when used against their schoolmasters. Afterward they came to be employed in all the bloody relations and uses to which a 'bare bodkin' can be ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... for us, she went softly in and put what we had brought near the miserable bed on which the mother slept. No effort had been made to clean the room—it seemed in its nature almost hopeless of being clean; but the small waxen form from which so much solemnity diffused itself had been composed afresh, and washed, and neatly dressed in some fragments of white linen; and on my handkerchief, which still covered the poor baby, a little bunch of sweet herbs ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... performer, was a plump young man, with black whiskers, and his hair in oily ringlets, such as may be seen in the model wigs presented on smiling, waxen dandies, in Mr. Rose's front window at Dollington. He bowed and smiled in the most unexceptionable of white chokers and the dapperest of dress coats, and drew off the whitest imaginable pair of kid gloves, when he sat ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Richard Beverley's brothers in arms. It was some time before they passed on. Then a little note almost of tragedy concluded the feast. A tall and elderly man, gaunt, with sunken cheeks, silver-white hair, complexion curiously waxen, and big, dark eyes, left the table where he had been sitting with a few Americans and came over towards them. His advance was measured, almost abnormally slow. His manner would have been melodramatic but for its intense earnestness. He stood at their table for a few seconds before speaking, ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... used to be; in the place of being clean-shaven, as when I used to know it, it was now surrounded by a fringe (what used to be known as a Newgate fringe), and it was the face of a dead man, the ghastly waxen pallor of it brought out more distinctly in the moonlight by the dark fringe of hair by which it was encircled; the body, too, was much stouter than when I had known ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... predictions concerning the fate of the living. Dr. Dee's friendship with Kelly was certainly suspicious. On the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, he foretold the future by consulting the stars. When a waxen image of the queen was found in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, which was a sure sign that some one was endeavouring to cast spells upon her majesty, Dr. Dee pretended that he was able to defeat the designs of such evil-disposed persons, ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... these children is appalling. I spent two days among them and heard no crying. Those who are sick, lie motionless as waxen images in their cots. Those who are supposedly well, sit all day brooding and saying nothing. When first they arrive, their faces are earth-coloured. The first thing they have to be taught is how to be children. They have to be coaxed and induced to play; even then they soon grow weary. ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... hearth, in compliment to the willful prejudice of Miss Plowden, who had maintained, in her most vivacious manner, that sea-coal was "only tolerable for blacksmiths and Englishmen." In addition to the cheerful blaze from the hearth, two waxen lights, in candlesticks of massive silver, were lending their aid to enliven the apartment. One of these was casting its rays brightly along the confused colors of the carpet on which it stood, flickering before the active movements of the form that played around ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... stalk, when seen at a distance are often mistaken for lilies-of-the-valley growing wild. But closer inspection of the rounded, pearlike leaves in a cluster from the running root, and the concave, not bell-shaped, white, waxen blossoms, with the pistil protruding and curved, indicate the commonest of the pyrolas. Some of its kin dwell in bogs and wet places, but this plant and the shin-leaf carpet drier woodland where dwarf cornels, partridge vines, pipsissewa, and goldthread weave their charming patterns too. ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... snow in the air; Ice where the lily Bloomed waxen and fair; He may call o'er the water, Cry—cry through the Mill, But Annie Maroon, alas! Answer ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare
... thinking, as the general stood there looking at the waxen image of his friend, what a stormy life he himself has passed; how little real tranquillity he can ever have enjoyed, and wondering whether he will be permitted to finish his presidential days in peace, which, according to ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... the sunshine. A woman lay dead upon the floor, her outstretched hand clenched upon the foot of a cradle. I entered the room, and, looking within the cradle, found that the babe had not been spared. Taking up the little waxen body with the blood upon its innocent breast, I laid it within the mother's arms, and went my way over the sunny doorstep and the earth that had been made ready for planting. A white butterfly—the first of the year—fluttered before me; then rose through a mist of green ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... come out and talk to me." The waxen mustached Minister of Nareda's Internal Affairs was like a sulky child. But Spawn ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... often struck by a tragic difference in their elders on returning home. To young Gourlay there was a curious difference in his mother. She was almost beautiful to-night. Her blue eyes were large and glittering, her ears waxen and delicate, and her brown hair swept low on her blue-veined temples. Above and below her lips there was a narrow margin of the ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... sitting in the same position, still bent forward, the child still on her lap. But no movement, no cry ever claimed her attention. Tears had stained her face, but they no longer fell. Holding a waxen little hand that would never again caress her, she gazed at the dying fire as though striving to ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... of himself did he imagine oft, That he was blighted, pale, and waxen less 100 Than he was wont; and that in whispers soft Men said, what may it be, can no one guess Why Troilus hath all this heaviness? All which he of himself conceited wholly Out of his weakness and ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... as a mighty river Their voices wash'd the night away: From East to West ran one white shiver, And waxen strong their song ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... frilled sheets, blankets and coverlid, lay two of the prettiest dolls that ever were seen. Their nightgowns were of fine linen; the nightcaps, tied under their dimpled chins, were sheer lawn, exquisitely embroidered. One tiny waxen hand lay outside the coverlid, and in it was ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... Cambridge myself; I heard very good report of London, and knew many that had relief of the rich men of London: but now I can hear no such good report, and yet I inquire of it, and hearken for it; but now charity is waxen cold, none helpeth the scholar, nor yet the poor. And in those days, what did they when they helped the scholars? Marry, they maintained and gave them livings that were very papists, and professed the pope's doctrine: and now that the knowledge of God's word is brought to light, ...
— Sermons on the Card and Other Discourses • Hugh Latimer
... Gone down to the burial-place, Where the grave-dews cleave to her faultless face; Where the grave-sods crumble around her; And that bright burden of burnish'd gold, That once on those waxen shoulders roll'd, Will it spoil with the damps of the deadly mould? Was it shorn when the church ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... himself, the colour mounting in his cheeks. Then he arose and walked over to the bed where the child lay, with one small hand thrown out across the bedclothes. The soft, golden hair lay in pretty rings on the moist forehead, but the little face looked waxen white. ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... motives of malice or gain by some wrinkled hags or itinerant sorcerers who passed their obscure lives in penury and contempt. Such vain terrors disturbed the peace of society and the happiness of individuals; and the harmless flame which insensibly melted a waxen image might derive a powerful and pernicious energy from the affrighted fancy of the person whom it was maliciously designed to represent. From the infusion of those herbs which were supposed to possess a supernatural influence, it was an easy step to the case of more substantial ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... sisters in the choir— The mitred abbot on his crimson throne— The waxen tapers, with their pallid fire Poured o'er the sacred cup and altar-stone— The upturned eyes, glistening with pious tears— The censer's fragrant vapour floating o'er; Now all is hushed, for, lo! the maid appears, Entering with solemn step ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... are fallen in, and the blood deserts my veins, Every fibre and bone of me is waxen full of pains, The iron feet of mine enemy's curse are heavy upon my head, Look at me and judge for thyself, thou seest I ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... silver candelabras, holding great waxen torches, served to illuminate this apartment. Yet let not modern beauty envy the magnificence of a Saxon princess. The walls of the apartment were so ill finished and so full of crevices, that the rich ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... not be forgotten, though so well known as hardly needing to be named. Who has not searched in dim New England woods, under solemn pines, for the sweet, shy, waxen clusters of this dearest of all the flowery train, hiding under old rusty leaves, but betraying itself by that indescribably delicious fragrance which perfumes the wood paths? Surely all the young hands have been filled with the pilgrim's-flower, the epigaea, the trailing arbutus, the ...
— Harper's Young People, May 18, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... song about her homelessness. Joseph replied cheeringly, and led her under a roof of leaves in the sanctuary, formed in the manner of a stable, in which we could see the manger against the wall. Here she took rest from her journey, while a little crib, wherein lay the Bambino—or waxen image of the Babe—all adorned with ribbons and laces, was brought from the sacristy and placed in the straw at ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... dozes off again when the passion is a little spent. He grows frailer, the skin is waxen white, and the eyes more deeply sunken. All that is to be of any avail must be done quickly, if St. Vincent is to die in peace as ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... fashion, with antimony; the dark lashes, dark eyebrows, dark hair, crisped (as West-country hair so often is) to its very roots, increase the almost ghostlike paleness of the face, not sallow, not snow-white, but of a clear, bloodless, waxen hue. ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... pale camellias back; Their soft leaves, waxen white And odorless, too ill accord With my dark ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... nuns at Funchal, Madeira, and the fairy frostwork of sugar seen on great occasions in French convents. No womanly art is a stranger to the deft fingers of cloistered nuns. Bookbinding is a pursuit well known among them, as is also the mounting in delicate filigree of the "Agnus Dei" or waxen representation of the Lamb of God, blessed by the pope at Easter and distributed throughout Christendom from the papal metropolis. Another convent industry is the preparation of the wafers used ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... the chapel of Jupiter in the Capitol, some in Pompey's Hall (where he was killed). Of a sudden two men, wearing swords at their side, and each carrying two javelins, came forward and set light to it with waxen torches which they held in their hands. The crowd of bystanders hastily piled up a heap of dry brush-wood, throwing on it the hustings, the benches, and any thing that had been brought as a present. The flute players and actors threw off the triumphal robes in which they were clad, rent ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... Since heaven-espousing earth Gave the Republic birth, The mightiest soul put mortal raiment on 500 That came forth singing ever in man's ears Of all souls with us, and through all these years Rings yet the lordliest, waxen yet more strong, That on our souls hath shed itself in song, Poured forth itself like rain On souls like springing grain That with its procreant beams and showers were fed For living wine and sacramental bread; ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... there, it was graced by the perfume and gold of acacias, by wistaria and jasmine and honeysuckle, by the ivory goblets of magnolias, by crimson fuchsias, and where formerly its grey walls grew mossy north and east by pink and white camelias and the waxen bells of lapagerias. The garden was a wilderness of scarlet rhododendrons from the thickets of which innumerable blackbirds and thrushes preyed upon the peas. The lawns were like meadows; the lily ponds were marbled ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... grew strong again: In time of primroses I went to pluck them in the lane; In time of nestling birds I heard them chirping round the house; And all the herds Were out at grass when I grew strong, And days were waxen long, And there was work for bees Among the May-bush boughs, And I had shot up tall, And life felt after all Pleasant, and not so ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... wondering dismay aroused Flavia from her musing, a sound scarcely louder than the murmur of the bees busied among the heavy waxen-white lemon-blossoms overhead. She lifted her chin from her hand, and saw a brown-haired, brown-skinned, brown-eyed girl standing on the path, gazing at the huge dog ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... she-goats anxiously awaited her. She bravely repressed a shudder, and fell upon her knees. History tells us that every goat turned away, as though ashamed of the part it was destined to play. Then, with a look of ineffable peace stealing over her waxen face, Bianca rose to her full height, and, flinging her arms heavenwards, she delivered that celebrated and heartrending speech which has lived after her for ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... the objects of private love or hatred. While systematically practising upon the credulity of his dupes, the professed master of this ill-omened art frequently resorted to assassination by poison or dagger in the accomplishment of his schemes. Sorcery by means of waxen images was particularly in vogue. Thus, the Queen of Navarre, the sister of Francis the First, in her singular collection of tales, the "Heptameron," gives a circumstantial account of the mode in which ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... edge with meeting wings the yawning ground, 595 Stretch their fair necks, and leaning o'er the brink View the pale regions of the dead, and shrink; Long with broad eyes ecstatic BEAUTY stands, Heaves her white bosom, spreads her waxen hands; Then with loud shriek the panting Youth alarms, 600 "My Life! my Love!" and springs ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... in her death! She was always pretty, and now she looked fair, and waxen, and young—younger than Deborah, as she stood trembling and shivering by her. We decked her in the long soft folds; she lay smiling, as if pleased; and people came—all Cranford came—to beg to see her, for they had ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell |
